The Textured Case
by H Stevenson
Summary: This story is based on the novels by Henning Mankell, and details Kurt Wallander's struggle to catch a bank robber who mercilessly shot a young cashier in the face.


The Textured Case

20th July 1995

Lisa Holgersson, Chief of Police, sat back in her chair with her fingers together. 'I need an update on the Lansforsakringar bank job. I'm rather hoping there's been some development in the case?'

Wallander's heart sank. The bank case was going to be one of the worst failures in his entire career. It had been almost two weeks since a masked man had burst through the doors of the bank at around midday, just as the bank was becoming busy. The masked man barged his way to the front of the queue and shot the cashier, a twenty year old student working part time, in the face at point blank range. He then turned the gun on the manager, ordering him to empty the till. By the time the armed response unit, ordered by way of the panic button under the desk, had arrived at the scene the thief had fled with around 20,000 kroner in a backpack. There were no forensic traces of him and the only other clue was a slip of paper, left (Wallander thought deliberately) on the counter, bearing the words 'Down with Lansforsakringar'.

'Nyberg believes that the gun was a Browning 9mm. He believes the gun was American army issue from the second world war, so it's an antique.'

Sven Nyberg, the technological expert, had been able to give little more insight into the case. Holgersson stared directly at him, so Wallander continued.

'With your permission I'd like to release Anders Lindström, today if possible.' Lindström was a well-known thief local to Ystad who specialized in armed robberies and whose Uncle owned an antique store in Malmö. The shop had recently been burgled, and according to the investigating officer from the Malmö police, it looked like an inside job. Wallander had an eyewitness testimony which placed Lindström's car near the bank on the day of the robbery, but during his interviews with him Wallander had come to believe that the young man sat in front of him really had no idea what had happened at the bank. He claimed the car had been stolen the night before, but was unreported because of the nature of the good in the boot. At the time of the robbery, Lindström claimed to have been alone, walking his Bull Terrier around a nearby park. Technically Wallander could hold the suspect for twelve hours, but he felt this to be unnecessary.

'On what grounds?'

Wallander cleared his throat and shuffled uncomfortably. He had anticipated the question, even prepared his answer for it in advance, yet somehow now she had asked it he had an uneasy feeling that his justification was not quite satisfactory.

'There's something not right about this robbery. Lansforsakringar is a large with bank with many safety deposit boxes and it also stores plenty of account information in its filling system. The intruder had the ideal opportunity to steal a vast amount of important documents which could be used to sabotage the bank's operations. The presence of the note would suggest a malicious intent towards the bank but the intruder demanded only cash. He didn't even much of that, not according to the manager. There was over 1 million Kroner in the bank's main cash draw alone. But the intruder insisted the manager stop after 20, 000.'

'In order to make a quick getaway surely?' Holgersson interrupted.

'Perhaps. I believe there could be another motivation behind this crime.'

'Such as?'

Wallander could tell that the Chief was growing impatient. He knew that he was not expressing himself very succinctly, but speeches had never been one of his skills. Wallander was a police officer of integrity and instinct, of the old school. His role had changed as the years wore on. He was now expected to explain himself far more than he ever had, a challenge he found difficult.

'Well if the motivation was not money, and the since the initial attach has not impaired the bank's business in any major way, then maybe there is another attack being planned for the bank, and the attach two weeks ago was simply a distraction or a setup. However since there has been no further attach in two weeks then I personally feel that the attack could have had more to do with the victim, Sofia Van Vetraan. She was a student working part time and she had only just moved to the area from Stockholm, but when I interviewed her parents they told me that she had been secretive and difficult to communicate with lately. They also claimed that she had been desperate for money, so there is a possibility that she was in on the robbery and that it went wrong. Her neighbours reported seeing a man violently demand money from Sofia on numerous occasions prior to her death. Maybe she was double crossed, or the gun was not supposed to be loaded. Either way, since there's no connection between Van Vetraan and Lindström, and since the only evidence we have against him is circumstantial, I feel that interviewing him further is simply a waste of time.'

He ended his speech and stared defiantly at his superior. Holgersson sat rigid for a moment, then suddenly slammed her fist into a pile of paperwork on her desk. Wallander was shocked. He had never seen her display her anger so violently.

'Kurt, are you being serious?' You want to trample on two weeks' worth of work, to release the only suspect we have in an armed robbery case, all because of a hunch? You do not have my permission to release Anders Lindström. You are to keep him in custody and continue with your line of questioning until such a time as this case is resolved. Now get out!'

Wallander stormed out of the office and into the corridor. He returned to his own office, where he sat in his worn out chair and berated the Chief of Police for several minutes. The transition to having a female senior officer had been difficult, but never had she treated him with such blatant contempt as now.

Wallander had just decided that he would leave the office to get some lunch when the phone rang. He wondered if it was his daughter, Linda. She had promised to call when she got back. She was currently abroad, training to be a furniture restorer, but she was back in Sweden for a few weeks. Wallander thought it would be nice to hear her voice.

'Hello?'

'Hello Kurt? This is Martinsson.'

Kurt swore under his breath. Martinsson had been on this case from the beginning, and was irritating optimistic that it would be swiftly resolved.

'Yes?'

'It's Lindström. According to the duty officer he has been yelling your name and demanding to speak to you for the past half an hour. He has even agreed to an interview without his smart alec lawyer.'

Wallander was surprised. Ever since his arrest three days ago Anders Lindström had insisted his lawyer, a family friend who had flown in from London especially to help him, be present. His dismissal of the lawyer suggested a new development in the case.

'I'll interview him right now. Meet me outside the interview room in a minute.'

'Ok.'

Anders Lindström's interview interested Wallander, but the evidence he provided gave little support to the Inspector's theory that the robbery was somehow connected to the main victim, Sofia Van Vetraan. Lindström admitted to using the car to steal antiques from his Uncle Tobias's antiques store using his car to transport the goods. He had, he insisted, a friend who would back up his story. The goods were stolen to order, for his friend to sell on. Lindström insisted he had done it as a favour to his friend, Victor Meltvitch, and that the car had been in Victor's possession at the time of the robbery.

Wallander believed this story as much as he had the others. He left the interview room, ordered Martinsson, in a rather sharp voice, to bring Victor Meltvitch in for questioning. Then he left the station, ignoring the calls from Ebba, the long serving, long suffering receptionist, got in to his Peugeot and drove in to town. He stopped at a hamburger restaurant he ate at too frequently, ordered the hamburger special, ate too fast then drove around town for a couple of hours. He let his mind roam among the hills and run-down buildings he passed, but by the time he arrived back at the station, his hurried meal was beginning to repeat on him and he felt in an even fouler mood than the one he had left in.

As he walked back in to the station Ebba accosted him.

'Martinsson has just been trying to get in touch with you for the past hour. He says it's urgent.'

'Tell him it can wait.'

Wallander rushed to the bathroom and spent the next half an hour dealing with the repercussions of his hastily consumed lunch. When he came out, he found Martinsson stood outside his office, looking puzzled.

'Oh, hello Kurt. Ebba just told me she had seen, I've got some rather odd news'.

'Hmm?'

'Victor Meltvitch confirms Lindström's story.'

Wallander, who had been in the process of shifting entering his office, stopped directly in front of the door and turned to face his younger college.

'What?'

'He admits to asking Lindström to steal the goods from Tobais Lindström's shop in Malmö. He claims that he picked the car, complete with stolen goods, up on the morning of the robbery and returned it at four pm. He is willing to admit handling stolen goods.'

'Why did he not steal the antiques himself?'

'He claims he's not a thief, which is at least partially true. He's originally from Poland, so I can't get his official records through until tomorrow, but I have a friend in the Polish force who tells me that Victor Meltvitch is a serial drug dealer. He has big contacts in most of the major cities in Scandinavia and Eastern Europe. He deals notably in Heroin, although he has been known to deal in other substances as well. What he wants with a load of old Swedish crap I've no idea.'

Wallander sat back in his chair and stared at the ceiling, allowing the information to wash over him. He felt that the answer was so close he could almost see it, but that it was obscured by some imaginary fog which would not abate.

'Do you ever feel like this is pointless?'

Martinsson tilted his head slightly. 'Do you mean Police work?'

'I mean all of it! Getting out of bed in the morning, driving to work, eating, sleeping, do you ever wish you could just stop doing all of it? This job feels so futile, but even existing feels futile when there are people out there, in existence, capable of committing such violent acts in the name of, what? Money, power, tiny little pills…'

Suddenly, an idea flooded into Wallander's head.

'Get me the pathology report on Sofia Van Vetraan. Try to find a connection between her and Meltvitch. Release Lindström but impound the car.'

Martinsson disliked disobeying orders from the Chief, but he knew better than to argue with Wallander when he was in a mood like this.

As Martinsson left his office, Wallander picked up his phone and dialled the number of the Malmö Police Station. When he got through he asked to speak to Hans Umberg, a college Wallander had met on numerous training courses. After a few minutes on hold Umberg's gruff voice came down the line.

'Kurt! Twice in a month, I am privileged. What can I do for you this time?'

'I've solved your robbery'. Wallander replied simply.

'Oh yes?'

'Yes. It is connected to the case I'm working on, the bank robbery. I was wondering if you could fax me over a copy of the inventory of everything that was stolen?'

'Certainly Kurt, of course. Can you give me the details of your case, since you seem to have solved mine in the course of it.'

Wallander gave Umberg a quick summery of the interviews with Lindström and Meltvitch, although he kept his ideas on the bank robbery to himself for the time being. After assuring Umberg that he would be kept informed on the case, Wallander withdrew to the main briefing room to await the faxed inventory. It did not take long.

Wallander's interview with Victor Meltvitch did not last long, for the suspect hardly said a word throughout, except to confirm his name for the tape. Wallander talked briefly, outlining the events of the bank robbery as he saw them.

'Now obviously Victor, you can correct me if I get this wrong. But I know you to be a drug dealer, particularly of Heroin, a highly addictive drug. Now my college Martinsson here, has eyewitnesses who have positively identified you as a man seen demanding money from Sofia Van Vetraan in the weeks before she died. Now it is my belief that you were her drug supplier, and that she was behind on her payments. Now I can't work out if this was a setup or an opportunity you couldn't turn down, but you had Anders Lindström steal those trunks from his Uncle's shop to transport your drugs. Inside one of those trunks was an antique gun, a gun highly unsuitable for robbing a bank, but very suitable for blowing the face off a young woman who had moved here from Stockholm to get away from your clutches, am I right?'

There was no response from the man sat opposite him, so Wallander continued.

'I think you're a very influential young man. You manipulated Lindström into stealing for you and lending you his car, but you could not force Van Vetraan to give you the money she owed you, because she did not have it and would not steal for it, so you shot her. I think the bank robbery was an excuse.'

It was only later, after confirming that Meltvitch would not respond to the allegations, and the tape recorder was switched off that the suspect spoke.

'Prove it, Wallander.'

As Wallander made his way out of the interview room, he knew somehow that he would never prove it. This whole case was put together from conjecture and guesswork. Maybe even perusing it would be a study in futility. But as he walked back to his office, Wallander viewed the prospect with a sort of grim satisfaction. Police work was sometimes an exercise in overcoming the futile.


End file.
